I really, really wanted to lose awareness of the here and now. The best way for me to do that was bury myself in a book.

Only a group lack of imagination could account for people not wondering what went on in the dark around them.

Anyone got X-ray visión?I asked, trying to smile. Where is Superman when you need him?

He pulled my coat off my shoulders, looked at it with distaste, hung it on the back of one of the chairs pushed in under the kitchen table. "You are beautiful". No one had ever looked me in the eyes and said that. Eric to Sookie, Page 208.

It was like being around a particularly irritating two-year-old.

"Come on," I said, taking his hand. Clutching the afghan with the other hand, he trailed down the hall after me, a snow white giant in tiny red underwear.

And by golly, love sure was a battlefield. Benatar was right about that.